4-Benign

One of my favorite candies is malted milk balls. Easter brings the pastel version, which is egg shaped and has a candy coating. I rounded up four of the most popular versions in stores today for a little comparison.

I have various sized bags from Jelly Belly, Necco, Brach’s (Ferrara Candy) and Whoppers (Hershey’s).

Though there are some size differences in the eggs, and some other sizes available from these brands, pastel malted eggs are usually larger than malted milk balls and less focused on the milk chocolate coating.

They’re generally an attractive candy, but with a large variation on the look and texture of the shell and color palettes.

From left to right: Necco Mighty Malts, Jelly Belly, Whoppers and then Brach’s.

Name: Mighty Malts Speckled Malted Milk Eggs
Brand: Necco
Size: 5 ounces
Price: $1.00
Shell: This is the only version of the assortment that doesn’t have a hard shell. Instead this is just sealed with a glaze and a little speckling.
Chocolate: This isn’t chocolate, it’s some white confection. It’s absolutely terrible. The only good thing about it was that at certain temperatures, I could peel it off. It might have been flavored, the pink one was strawberry, which actually wasn’t bad flavor-wise but I was thankful that the gritty malt center scrubbed away the waxy grease it left behind on my teeth.
Malted Milk Center: The centers redeem these eggs. The malt is so airy and crispy, but still packs a malty punch.

Verdict: It’s too messy to eat around the awful coating, so I can’t recommend these at all for eating, only decoration.

Name: Speckled Chocolate Malted Eggs
Brand: Jelly Belly
Size: 4.6 ounces
Price: $5.95
Shell: The shells are very thick, crunchy and pretty strong. The odd part though is that they’re also flavored. Green is lime, yellow is lemon and lavender is actually grape. It’s so strange.
Chocolate: Jelly Belly uses real chocolate in their eggs, but it’s a rather thin layer and because of the ratios, it really takes a back seat to the other flavors and textures.
Malted Milk Center: This malted center is sweet and has a strong cereal flavor and a light touch of malt and maybe honey. It dissolved well, a little grainy but not at all chewy.

Verdict: The shells are very thick, probably too much shell for me and the flavor was not a good mix for the other flavors. I still loved the colors and have eaten two full bags so far this season. However, they’re also very expensive ... about 5 times more expensive than the Necco Mighty Malts, though imminently more edible.

Name: Whoppers Robin Eggs
Brand: Hershey’s
Size: 10 ounces
Price: $3.49
Shell: These look ridiculous. They look like lumps of sidewalk chalk, not like food. That said, the texture of the shells is pretty amazing, they’re very durable as in the fact that they don’t crack, but once you bite, they’re very crunchy and thin.
Chocolate: The mockolate coating on these is just so bad. It tastes like damp junk mail. It has a cool melt on the tongue and at least takes up very little in the bulk of the candy as a whole.
Malted Milk Center: The center is crispy with an excellent dissolve that rarely gets tacky or deflated. The malt flavor is the best thing about this candy.

Verdict: The unappealing pink shells and less appealing mockolate layer just make these unbearable. I actually find myself doing the extra work on the Necco Mighty Malts instead of eating these, even though they have an excellent malt center.

Name: Malted Milk Pastel Fiesta Eggs
Brand: Brach’s (Ferrara Candy)
Size: 7.5 ounces
Price: $2.50
Shell: It’s crisp and has the texture of actual egg shells, a little bit of crumble, generally flavorless.
Chocolate: It’s passable stuff. It’s real chocolate, but not great quality. The texture is fatty and smooth, but also extremely sweet, there’s very little cocoa flavor to it.
Malted Milk Center: The texture is very dense, with a lot of milky notes but less malt than the others. It’s not overly sweet and not overtly salty.

Verdict: Of the four, I prefer these, though they still don’t quite shine on their own merits, only in comparison. I’ve eaten two bags so far this season and do find them comforting, but I only keep eating them on the naive hope that I’ll find “a good one” as if that’s ever happened or will happen.

The result of this tour only confirms that I love the idea of a great Malted Milk Pastel Egg, but I haven’t found it yet.

Brach’s, which has named itself “America’s Candy Maker” has introduced a pretty wide array of candies for Valentine’s Day this year.

They include the returning JuJu Hearts in cinnamon and cherry flavors, Peppermint Heart Nougats and at least three different kinds of wafer Conversation Hearts. The new items, which I’ll try to review this year, include today’s item, Brach’s Gummi Conversation Hearts.

They come in a 10 ounce stand up, resealable bag and cost $2.79. There’s no description on the package of what the candy actually is, just the name.

The hearts come in six colors: pink, orange, green, white, yellow and lavender. Each has lumpy motto molded into them, nearly all are in text-ese. I might have preferred emoticons.

The mottoes depicted were short, as I think the limit was 2 characters + 3 characters + 1 character stacked. So they went something like: 2 HOT or XO XO or QT PIE or BFF. Not exactly a conversation.

The gummis are opaque and look like latex paint. They smell a little off, a little too much like cherry and plastic. It didn’t matter which color they were, they all smelled like cherry.

Yellow is Lemon. The texture is quite bouncy. Each piece is really the right size for a gummi, not more than a bite, and easy enough to conceal if you like to let it dissolve or chew. It’s quite mild, not overly tart or zesty. Not even strong enough to classify as pleasant.

Green is Lime. This was floral and only has the smallest tangy bite. It’s so bland, I had a hard time figuring its flavor for a while.

Lavender is Grape. Grape is a rare flavor in gummis, so it ought to be savored ... this one has a little grape soda note to it, but not much else going for it.

Pink is Cherry. This is probably the best one, not that I like cherry, but it’s definitely cherry and a bit more vibrant than the others.

Orange is Orange. There weren’t a lot of these in my mix, which is fine. They had a lot of zest notes, which is good, but not much in the way of juice.

White is Pineapple. Probably. I don’t know what this is, there are not colorings (except for the titanium dioxide) so it’s definitely more of a blank slate. It’s a little tangy, kind of bright, but not citrusy, but then again, it kind of tasted like cherry.

I think Brach’s does some candies well, such as Candy Corn. Gummis are not something I would select Brach’s as my brand of choice. There are too many other companies making better gummis with better flavors and better shapes. Since they’re not appealing even as a decoration, I’d say these are not worth anyone’s time.

Last year Mars released Red Velvet M&Ms as a Walmart exclusive for Valentine’s Day. This year they’ve created Dove Milk Chocolate & Red Velvet Swirl Promises which are found only at Target.

The description on the bag of the bag is vague about what a Red Velvet Swirl Heart is actually like, only saying that it’s “a delicious blend of luxuriously smooth chocolate and rich red velvet flavor.” But it never elaborates what constitutes red velvet’s flavor ... which might be the buttermilk touched with cocoa of the cake or the cream cheese frosting.

There are two different colors of foil, but the pieces inside are the same inside. The heart shapes and foil colors are elegant, I always appreciate how well Dove does the packaging of their Promises. I was surprised at how light colored the actual pieces are. I know it’s a milk chocolate Promise, but the combination of the lightness of the milk chocolate and the pink swirled white chocolate makes it a very pale candy.

The scent is odd, I’ve had a few red velvet flavored chocolates now, but this one is not quite the same. It’s not just vanilla or pound cake scented, there’s a note of strawberry in there. Now, I have nothing against vanilla, strawberry and chocolate as a combination, there’s actually a lot of history to the Neapolitan. The melt is nice, as always, it’s excpetionally sweet and there is an immediately “cake” flavor that I can’t quite figure out ... but then there are other flavors that just sit on top of the experience. There’s something that’s a little cheesy and something that’s a little metallic. It’s all dreadful, as far as I’m concerned.

I’m absolutely the wrong target demographic for this candy, as I’m not a fan of Red Velvet cake in the first place, but I haven’t seen anyone who I’ve offered this to (that will eat it) that actually liked it.

On a side note, there will be Red Velvet Oreos this year, which makes a bit more sense as a platform for the flavors.

Christmas candy is mostly about peppermint and chocolate and shiny colored foil wrapping. Holiday gum is rather unusual, so I was pleased to see Concord Confections part of the Tootsie Roll company has a variety for winter: Dubble Bubble Snow Balls.

I enjoy novelty gums for the same reason I enjoy other candy coated morsels: they’re fun to look at before eating. The Snow Balls are extremely cute. Each is the size of a garbanzo bean and rattle around easily in the theater size box. What I also liked about this particular gum was that they were white ... there was no artificial coloring (though there is titanium dioxide as a whitener), so I didn’t have to worry about anything getting into the flavor except what they intended as the flavor. The gum is made with sugar and corn syrup with no artificial sweeteners.

The pieces are beautiful. They’re rough and white and though spherical, they don’t roll around. The bite was wonderfully soft and easy to chew, but the flavor is ... well, it’s kind of like fabric softener at first. It’s floral - somewhere in the neighborhood of violet and maybe musk. After chewing (two pieces seemed like a good portion), the crunchy shell and gum base were very soft. However, within a minute, the sugar dissipated to the point that the gum was getting quite stiff ... another two minutes and it was an unchewable lump that was less appealing than a wad of paper. My style is to switch out at that point anyway, so I just spit out the first piece and repeat.

Now, since this was bubble gum, I should comment on those qualities. It works. The bubbles can’t get that big, as the gum base is too stiff and unforgiving. But it’s not particularly sticky, which is a plus. But it’s most definitely not bubble gum flavored, and any children you give this to might be turned off by the soapy notes.

After chewing, even a half hour later, I did notice a lingering floral taste in my mouth, rather like jasmine tea.

Dubble Bubble is peanut free and gluten free ... and in this instance is also free from dyes but may contain traces of soy. The gumballs are made in Canada.

As if Circus Peanuts weren’t enough of an enigma, now they’re branching out into seasonal varieties.

If you’re not familiar with Circus Peanuts, they’re a fluffy, grainy, marshmallow shaped like a peanut, the same color as an orange creamsicle but flavored like bananas. Every once in a while you see other holiday shapes, like bunnies for Easter. Though I’m only a fan of Circus Peanuts by concept, because once I actually eat one I wonder what I was thinking. They have some sort of hypnotic amnesia field around them, and I often forget I don’t like them and eat them. (I think there’s a genetic component to this, there are some people who are immune to this and know they hate them and can avoid them, then there are others who actually like them so there’s no need for the amnesia.)

Melster Marshmallow Candy Corn Circus Peanuts are basically not banana flavored, but candy corn flavored ... and not just orange, but also yellow and white.

Here’s the top reason to buy them: You’ve always wanted to like Circus Peanuts but you were turned off by the flavor. Don’t worry, Candy Corn Circus Peanuts have no flavor. (I’m just going to call them CCCP now.)

If you’re a fan of marshmallows in your cereal, like Lucky Charms, these are actually a pretty good version of that as a candy. The original Lucky Charms marbits were Circus Peanuts, but I think these match the flavor better.

These were fresh and do smell lightly like vanilla and sugar. It’s comforting. Rather clean and bright. The bite is soft, but the texture is grainy. They’re like a marshmallow, but much denser ... but not quite a nougat. Really, they taste just like a very sugary marshmallow. If you’ve ever wanted Campfire Marshmallows with more sugar in them, this is for you.

These can’t even muster being divisive like the banana Circus Peanuts, that’s how ineffectual they are. That said, there’s a Peppermint version for Christmas ... Candy Warehouse (who provided these) also sent some of those, I can’t wait!

Nestle Mini Smarties Filled Chick are little hollow chocolates wrapped in yellow foil. Inside is a small handful of mini Nestle Smarties. I kind of made up the name of the candy, the name on the sticker on the base of the foil is

Hollow milk chocolate figure containing mini Smarties. Seems like they could have named them something like Nestle Nestling.

The idea of a hollow chocolate figure filled with other treats is nothing new, but is a fantastic idea that’s utilized much better in Europe since these overprotective Americans think that we’ll all choke on the fillings. Nestle has many different sizes they do for Easter, as well, including a foil wrapped hen filled with Smarties as well, and often sold in a box that looks like a chicken coop with a bunch of the little chicks.

There were a lot of displays of these in grocery stores and drug stores while I was in London, so it was easy to pick up both. Most were priced at about two for one pound, which I thought was a bit steep for 30 grams (about 1.06 ounces) when you factor in that it’s Nestle chocolate.

Unwrapped the little chick is just as cute. It’s very well molded. The best thing about the candy is really the sound. Just shake the figure and it’s like a rattle.

The milk chocolate isn’t stellar, as it is Nestle; the ingredients are subpar. It wouldn’t qualify as real milk chocolate in the United States, as they use milk whey as a filler. However it’s 25% cacao content and they do use sunflower lecithin instead of soy, so if your kid has a soy sensitivity, you might want to seek the UK Nestle confections. The Smarties also use all natural colors for the shells and rice starch. Still, the label states that it may contain traces of soy, gluten, peanuts and other tree nuts.

For those of you not familiar with them, Nestle Smarties are little chocolate lentils. Unlike many of Nestle’s global brands, they’re not sold in the United States very often, as they have the same name as a pre-existing candy. Instead of renaming them, Nestle just doesn’t compete with M&Ms in the United States. (They do in Canada, though.)

The little chick is rather thin. The chocolate is rather soft, so it was easy to stick my thumb through it to break it up. Inside were 15 little Smarties lentils, far smaller than the regular Smarties. They come in pleasant pastel colors.

The chocolate is bland and sweet and sort of fudgy-thick. It doesn’t taste like something that should be eaten, more like packaging. The texture is decent enough, but I admit I’m spoiled from the Rococo Chocolate I had yesterday, so perhaps the proximity of the reviews is unfair. The Smarties don’t use the same chocolate. They taste nutty, like unroasted peanuts and porridge. The thin, crispy shell is fun. They’re about as good as Sixlets.

Even though I thought this was a marginal product, they’re inexpensive enough to buy and use as place settings for a dinner or give to a child. The interactivity of the candy inside is really what makes this special along with the attention to detail in the foil wrap and mold.

The Nestle Milkybar Rabbit is just as cute in his little white foil outfit.

Milkybar is a Nestle white confection bar. It’s made with natural ingredients, but like the Smarties chick, it contains extra whey as filler and some vegetable oils ... but there is real cocoa butter in there. It does seem to have a mix of sunflower and soy lecithin. The other allergens listed on the label were traces of peanuts and tree nuts. While I may complain about the use of vegetable oils, this is 26% dairy, so they’re not kidding when they say milky.

This fellow clocked in a little shy of a full ounce, my guess is the difference in weight between the two is the little Smarties. (Why this one doesn’t get Smarties, I don’t know. They don’t make a white confection Smarties at the moment.)

Out of the foil, this rabbit looks a bit like a themed guest soap. It’s cute and has a very thick base so he stands up well.

It smells okay, very “dairy” though I’d also say slightly rancid or just not quite fresh. The texture is good, not as silky as, say, the M&Ms White Chocolate, but still not terribly grainy. The dairy flavors are thick and just unpleasant overall. The whole thing has a bit of a plastic note to it, as if I was eating a foam egg carton, not a white chocolate.

I’m not a white chocolate snob, I actually like the stuff, but this is not good white chocolate. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a Milkybar (I haven’t review them before) but it never impressed me since there are many excellent true white chocolate bars available these days. It’s still fun to look at, and for a child who doesn’t care for the milk chocolate stuff, if this is what they ask for, it couldn’t be cuter, and on top of that, the portion is already controlled.

Nestle has been doing a lot to source their cacao through verified sustainable sources, however, their Easter novelty line does not seem to have any of those certifications.

I’m a sucker for the look of candy, especially in bulk. I couldn’t help but pick up a five pound bag of these compressed dextrose hearts.

The weblisting for the product says that they’re pastel, but they’re much brighter than that. It’s hot pink, magenta/purple, turquoise blue and light yellow. The heart shapes are small, rather pillowy in form and about the size of a nickel.

I wasn’t really interested in how they tasted, at this price, it was more about having a pretty candy jar filled with little hearts before Valentine’s Day to share with co-workers. That was about two weeks ago and the jar is empty. (I didn’t eat them. But they were popular.)

These are not tart candies. I don’t think there are any acid flavorings at all in here. They might be flavored, but it’s so mild it’s hard to say for sure.

Purple is a lightly floral grape. Red has some strawberry notes. Blue is a kind of bitter raspberry, really the only flavor in the bunch I didn’t care for. Yellow is lightly lemony, quite fresh.

They’re pretty. They make a nice decoration, but not really very good candy. There’s nothing to offend anyone, no weird flavors because there’s barely any flavor at all. But I’m not saying that they’re not compelling, they’re gorgeous to look at and easy to munch. I’ve had other much more flavorful Oak Leaf candies before, so this must be from a much more subtle line of candy than I like.

Ultimately the review around the office was that they were too pretty to pass up. But no one wants me to buy them again. Kind of a weird relationship to have with candy. Personally, I’d prefer the Wonka Heartbreakers, so that’s what I’ve been eating while others have emptied the jar.

Candy Crush Saga is one of the popular tablet/phone games on the market right now. The concept is simple, you just move one “candy” match three or more of the same “candies” in a row to eliminate them from the board.

Since the game is candy-themed, it’s only natural that someone would get a license to develop a line of candy to go along with it. King.com granted its license to Healthy Food Brands, who already makes the Angry Birds gummies in stores now. The initial offerings for the Candy Crush line are: Candy Crush Sour Fruit Gummies, Fruit Mix Gummies, Jelly Fish and Color Bombs. Yesterday I reviewed the two gummies, today I have the Candy Crush Color Bombs.

The box for the Color Bombs features some sort of a horse creature (or maybe that’s a dinosaur), the package describes them as Chocolaty Drops with Rainbow Sprinkles. Note that it doesn’t say that they’re chocolate, which is disappointing. The box was $4.00 (though the retail price on the press release says they’re supposed to be $1.99) and it only holds 3 ounces. It’s a really big box for such as small amount of candy. It’s 7 inches long and 4.25 inches wide. I compared it to the more standard Mike and Ike box which was 6 inches by 3.25 and holds 5 ounces. The candies in this line are also inside a white plastic pouch inside the box. For freshness. But it highlights the fact that the candy only takes up one third of the volume of the box.

For a company that’s making Better for You Confections, that’s a lot of stuff that’s not chocolate in a chocolate confection.

The drops are about 3/4 of an inch across. They’re covered in nonpareils in orange, white, yellow, blue and purple. It’s a festive look, though you can imagine that some come off in transit so the bottom of the bag is a rather substantial puddle of maddeningly rolly sprinkles.

They’re sweet and have a comforting cocoa flavor to them. It’s like eating a paste made from hot cocoa mix. There’s a cardboard note to it and the crunchies add even more sweetness. The melt isn’t much, it becomes fudgy but never smooth. They’re passable for decorations, but not something I would ever spend my own money on for actual eating.

So, they’re chocolate flavored disks with colorful nonpareils ... that cost over $21.00 for a pound. There are some excellent, beautiful chocolates available at that price that taste terrific, are sourced well and have exceptional ingredients. They might not come in a box that references a game, but they’re probably more satisfying. (If you must, buy this box and then refill it with something good, heck, I bought some Ghirardelli 60% cacao chocolate chips for $2.49 for 12 ounces at Target over the weekend, they’d fit well in here. Or if you must go colorful, Nuts.com has some semi-sweet buttons with colorful crunchies for only $6.00 a pound.)

In short, a dismal disappointment. Bad ingredients, deceptive package size and just regrettable candy. Probably not unlike the feeling of accomplishment when you finish a level of one of these video games ...sure, you finished it, but how satisfying was it really?

Candyology 101 - Episode 35 - Whatchamacallit
In the latest Candyology 101 podcast, Maria and I tackled a little-celebrated candy bar, the Whatchamacallit. We’re also trying out a new format, which is a little shorter, like a handful of fun size candy bars! (more)

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

All content (text and photos unless otherwise credited) is copyright 2005-2016 by Cybele May

Please do not use my photos without prior permission directly from me, they represent what I ate in preparation for these reviews and are not to be used for other purposes.